So how many copies do you have to sell to become a best seller? And how many authors achieve this?
Best Selling Books of 2007: Hardcover, Paperback, Childrens.
One person’s numbers for making #19 on the NY Times list.
The Times on making their list.
Last week I spent a lovely day with the League of Utah Writers at their annual writing conference. I presented “The Secret to Getting Great Story Ideas” which was about how to stop generating great story ideas by accident and start generating them on purpose, whenever you need them. I promised the folks I’d post my PowerPoint and notes. You’ll find them below.
The Secret To Getting Great Story Ideas 2015 LUW – Presenter Notes
The Secret To Getting Story Ideas 2015 LUW – Slides
For those wanting more details, you’ll find the same idea in my series on getting ideas. Here’s the first post: “Can You Create a Redneck Crapper”.
Is The Guardian right?
Does it really cost $6,000 to publish a book independently?
Is that the price to become Hemmingway these days?
Lots of commenters at The Passive Voice said the numbers were rubbish. Far too high. They said this was yet another thinly-veiled bit of flimflam The Guardian cooked up to depress indies and send aspiring authors into the arms of the zombie traditionalists.
I actually thought the piece was good.
Why?
Because I like numbers. I did get a Master’s degree in accounting, after all.
But is it just that numbers are sexy?
It’s true the shape of the number 3 can be glorious. 9 is a stunner as well. But the slopes and curves of these digits is not why I like them. Numbers, even if they’re bad numbers, allow you to start thinking about costs. They allow you to question whether they could be reduced. Or whether you’re getting any bang for your buck in a certain category. Heck, numbers allow you to discover whether you’re allocating way too much in one area and far too little in another.
I thought The Guardian did a great job breaking the costs out into categories and starting an examination. The question is: are the categories and amounts political fictions or real?
One way numbers do all the things I mentioned above is by letting you do comparisons. So I figured I’d compare The Guardian’s numbers with a set of my own. I’ve published four books independently. How do my costs stack up?
Here are the costs for the latest.
Cover: $500
Editing: $0
Formatting for POD and ebook: $120
ISBN: $0
Copyright Registration: $55
Print-on-demand fees: $0
Notice what’s NOT up there that was in The Guardian article: reviews and review copies.
Why don’t I include them?
First, I would never pay for a Kirkus review. I wouldn’t because it appears such reviews mean little to readers. They don’t seem to generate much notice or desire to sample. Here’s what readers report matter to them. Such pre-publication reviews DO matter to store and library book buyers. But, as an indie, I’m not focusing on those channels. Those channels are in the hands of the zombie traditionalists.
What about review copies?
You don’t need them to publish. All this review business is marketing. And you don’t need marketing to publish.
So what are my totals? I’ve included The Guardian numbers so you can see the differences.
| Category | My Costs | Guardian Estimates |
| Cover | $500 | $750 |
| Editing and proofing | $0 | $4,000 |
| Ebook and POD Formatting | $100 | ? |
| ISBN | $0 | $125 |
| Copyright Registration | $55 | ? |
| POD setup fees | $0 | ? |
| Reviews | – | $825 |
| Review Copies | – | $300 |
| TOTAL | $655 | $6,000 |
Whoa! The Guardian estimated a cost that’s ten times what it costs me. But I don’t think that’s a sign of some plot. If I’d paid an editor and cover designer and formatter and didn’t mooch my ISBNs, that could have added as much as $1,000-$2,000 to my total. I have friends who have paid more.
Furthermore, that’s just for the ebook and hard copy. Depending on if you publish an audio edition and how you do it, you could spend another $2,000-$3,000.
What does this tell you? It tells me that the reporter made a good start, but needed to do a bit more digging. It also tells me there’s a huge variability in the costs depending on the skills you and your friends possess. It also shows that this is a business. I doesn’t cost a gazillion dollars to publish. It’s not like the $200,000-500,000 you need to start some food franchises, but you’d better be prepared to fork over some cash and/or a lot of hard work.
In fact, when you consider that last point of sweat equity, the $655 is completely misleading because it does not capture the hours I spent, at least 20-60, doing my part of the cover, editing, and formatting. Nor the time spent by my wife or friends. There’s a huge opportunity cost there.
What’s the value of what I could have done with that time?
It’s for dang sure not reflected in the $655.
I didn’t include marketing in those costs above because marketing is its own beast. You can publish and do zero marketing. You can publish and do gobs. And just as with the publishing costs, marketing costs will vary based on what you can do in-house and what your situation is. It costs JK Rowling nothing to get covered in every news outlet in the land. She sneezes, and we get a report about her. You and I are probably going to have to work harder to get noticed.
There are all sorts of marketing costs. Whatever those costs, marketing has a job to do. It’s got to pay for itself. It’s got to help pay for the cost of publishing. And it’s got to help me meet my goal of winning new readers and compensating me for my time.
There are lots of cost categories depending on what you decide to do:
The bottom line is that I think it’s good to separate these costs from publishing so you can measure their effectiveness against sales. Marketing is about revenue generation. These costs really have nothing to do with producing a book.
I’m going to go off an a tangent here for a second. Some folks suggest that indie authors shouldn’t do much marketing. Especially if they only have one or two books out.
I find no evidence to support the idea that just writing the next book is all you need to do for readers to hear about you and beat a path to your door. It’s true you’ve got to write the next book. You must get new product out the door. Hey, I learned that when book 2 from the publisher fell into a black hole. But that doesn’t mean marketing and promotion are inappropriate, wrong-headed, or a waste of time or money.
Let me ask you a question.
Let’s say Juanito is a no-name in the lemonade business. He’s just starting from scratch with dreams of becoming a big time lemonader. Who thinks it’s a good idea for him to open a lemonade stand in his back yard? Or better yet, in a closet in his basement? And when folks suggest that the stand might get more business if he lets the neighbors know about it or puts the stand in a place with a lot of foot traffic, who says, no, that’s a waste of time and money–the key to selling more lemonade is whipping more batches up in the kitchen?
In retail, you must get folks to notice your product and then persuade them to try it. Now, maybe you’ve got something going that’s generating all the notice and sampling you can handle. Maybe you lucked out.
What percentage of indies are in that situation? Raise your hands, please.
What? We’re not all inundated with hordes of readers? We’re not all swimming in gold? Imagine that.
The fact is that it’s tough to get notice. It’s tough to get people to try. But there are some things we can do to increase our odds. Selling books is a retail business. Retail lives and dies by visibility. Yeah, you need word of mouth. But you need to be noticed and sampled in large enough amounts to keep that word of mouth going.
What would you rather have? 100,000 people all over the country in many social networks (I’m not talking about Facebook) noticing and sampling and talking about your product, or would you rather have five?
In the brick and mortar world, there are lots of ways to get visibility without doing much TV or internet advertising. Ways to get notice include things as simple as signage and a store’s location. For example, you get a ton of eyeballs just situating your restaurant in the parking lot of a big destination shopping mall. You get eyeballs putting a sign on top of a 100 foot pole next to the freeway exit saying “Gas & Eats.” Online retailers get noticed in other ways.
Without blathering on about that (this was a post on publishing costs), let me just say that until customers begin to line up and start throwing hundred dollar bills at me, it appears I’m going to have to do what every other retail business has done for hundreds of years–get my lemonade stand out of the basement and into the park with lots of thirsty kids and moms.
EDIT 8/30/2014
While a number of folks are assuming the article was written as part of some vast conspiracy to undermine indie authors, David Gaughran posted some criticism in the article’s comment section that actually make sense.
DavidGaughran
The reason I’m so annoyed by the inaccuracies in this article is that this kind of misinformation is creates an information gap which allows shady operators to flourish.
Vanity press operators thrive because inexperienced authors think that self-publishing is either difficult or expensive. It’s neither of those things, and articles like this only serve to reinforce this false notion. That’s why I think this piece is irresponsible as well as inaccurate.
Companies like Author Solutions specifically target the most inexperience authors, the ones who know least about self-publishing and the industry in general, the ones who have fallen under the spell of various myths (like that self-publishing costs $6,000).
As a commenter said below, saying self-publishing costs $6,000 is like saying houses cost $10m. You can spend that much, but you don’t need to.
It costs me less than a third of that to publish a book, and I use a Big 5 cover designer as well as an editor with over ten years experience working for traditional publishers. Anyone can look at my books and immediately see that they are produced to professional standards.
You don’t even have to spend as much as I do to get a quality product. If authors are on a tighter budget, they can purchase a pre-made cover design. There are some wonderful pre-mades out there for as little as $40. You will have to invest a fair bit of time combing through the sites to find something suitable, but if you are on a shoestring budget it’s an option.
Same goes for content editing/developmental editing. All manuscripts will need a thorough copy edit, but you can get by without a specific content edit with successive round of beta readers. Again, this will require a time investment – writers usually trade beta reads of each other’s work. But if you’re on a tighter budget, it’s another way you can save money.
This is why this piece is so off. Even going the “deluxe” route shouldn’t cost more than $2,000. And if you don’t have $2,000, there are plenty of options where you can achieve a quality product, spending far less, if you are willing to put in a little time.
There are ways you can save money in other areas too. It’s a waste of money for an author (especially a new author) to buy a NetGalley membership for themselves. Authors can (and do) form collectives to buy a membership between them – often spending just $20 per person. I got a NetGalley spot for a month, for free, by bartering with another author. (I didn’t think it was quite worth $20, by the way, let alone $400).
If you need reviews, there are much better and cheaper ways. Submitting to book bloggers costs nothing (we usually send e-book copies or PDFs, rather than hard copies). Doing an e-book giveaway on LibraryThing costs nothing. Giving out electronic ARCs in advance of your release costs nothing. And all of these are much more effective than giving any kind of money to Kirkus, let alone $425.
But I guess it doesn’t matter how many experienced self-publishers (and editors who work with same) tell you that your figures are off, or that you don’t need ISBNs to self-publish, you are going to stick to your guns.
Folks, it’s been almost six months since I added anything to my series on how to get and develop killer story ideas. There’s a reason it’s been so long—I’ve been heads-down trying to develop my own stories.
I have allotted myself only so much time for writing each day, and when things have to give, unfortunately, it’s my blog that goes first. Actually, the social media goes first, which is why I have such a lame Facebook and Twitter presence. Of course, if anyone contacts me directly using the link in the sidebar or comments on a post, I always respond promptly.
Anyway, I wish I had more time, but I do have a day job. I also have wonderful wife and four daughters, and I simply can’t miss my opportunity to enjoy them while they’re here. For example, we just did an eight-hour roundtrip trek out to Roosevelt, Utah to attend the commencement ceremonies of my daughter who is graduating with her Associates degree from one of the state universities one month before she receives her High School diploma. Yes, you read that correctly. It’s all part of the concurrent enrollment program we have that’s a godsend for those of us who live in rural areas. That was also the day of my 23rd wedding anniversary to a most excellent and wonderful wife and mom, who would like to think of herself as a large cat, something like a jaguar, but who is more like a horse—sleek, beautiful, and good for something. Nellie’s a rock.
So all that blather to say I haven’t had much time, but I am happy to announce I’ve got something for you today. I think you will find quite helpful.
One of the problems new writers run into is that they don’t know where to start or how to proceed. This is the same with any complex endeavor. In my day job, I’ve been teaching some fairly complex things for a number of years, and I’ve found that when you give students a framework for learning, it makes everything SO MUCH EASIER. Show them the forest first, then the trees. When you give people a structure, a mental schema, it frees up their working memory so they don’t get overloaded.
But it’s useful for more than learning about something. When we try to do something complex, it’s so much easier when we break the task down into its parts and outline clear objectives, guidelines, and tools for each part.
I realized that I haven’t really done that here. I’ve given the general framework for the three things you need to learn to write stories—(1) what stories do, (2) how they do it, and (3) how to develop them. But I haven’t given one for development. So here it is.
There are three parts to the framework:
Each post I’ve made about writing stories and each post I will make in the future will explain some part of the framework. For example, the 27-part series Key Conditions for Suspense that I wrote for SFWA explains key principles and concepts for character, problem, and plot. The post in this series on the Story Setup explains a tool that can be used to help you develop your story’s problem. And so on. What the framework should give you is a map, a guide to help you know what to do and how to do it.
Let’s start with the objectives. A story is made up of just a few main parts. I’ve found I’m most productive when I keep the objectives for those parts foremost in my mind and when I keep the list of objectives simple. Having too many objectives makes it almost impossible to move forward. Here are the objectives I have when I’m developing a story.
| Area | Development Objectives |
| GENERAL | Make the story come alive in my own mind |
| GENRE | Define the overall type of story I want to write |
| CHARACTER | Develop characters who move and delight me |
| SETTING | Develop a setting that interests me and feels real |
| PROBLEM | Develop a story problem that I find compelling |
| PLOT | Help the reader hope and fear for my character |
| TEXT | Evoke the story in the reader’s mind |
Your job is to develop the story, making it come alive in your mind, then write it in a way that will evoke it in the reader’s mind. You do that by focusing on the objectives you see above.
Note that I do NOT develop these areas in any special order because ideas for any of the six parts could come at any time. And because I’m focused on the objectives, I don’t get trapped into activity for activity’s sake. I don’t do character histories because a big name author said that’s what I should do. I don’t do outlines because everyone I know does them. I don’t do any activity just because it’s on some list. I work to accomplish something. And the things I want to accomplish are listed above.
Once we know what we’re after, we need to understand the principles and concepts that will help us develop those things. For example, what kinds of characters “move” and “delight”? What makes a story problem “compelling”? What makes readers hope and fear for a character?
If I don’t understand the principles and concepts that underlie each of the objectives, I’m going to have a difficult time meeting that objective. So let’s add in the key principles and concepts I’ve found that help me meet those objectives.
| Area | Development Objectives | Development Principles & Concepts |
| GENERAL | Make the story come alive in my own mind | Focus on developing the 6 core parts of story (genre, character, setting, problem, plot, text) in no special sequence |
| Gather zing: use a drag net and hunt with a purpose | ||
| Generate my own zing | ||
| Develop in iterations | ||
| Practice farmer’s faith | ||
| Write what you care about and believe in: listen to your personal Spidey-sense | ||
| Make enough time | ||
| Relax and have fun | ||
| GENRE | Define the overall type of story I want to write | Reader expectations |
| Tropes and patterns | ||
| CHARACTER | Develop characters who move and delight me | Sympathy |
| Deservingness | ||
| Interest | ||
| Types and roles | ||
| Cast sizing | ||
| SETTING | Develop a setting that interests me and feels real | How things work |
| Telling details | ||
| What’s necessary | ||
| PROBLEM | Develop a story problem that I find compelling | Hope and fear |
| The 3 main types of problems | ||
| Character goals | ||
| Opposition | ||
| Problems that speak to the reader (theme) | ||
| PLOT | Help the reader hope and fear for my character | Suspense |
| Surprise | ||
| Curiosity | ||
| The 3 phases of a story’s problem structure | ||
| The story cycle | ||
| Patterns | ||
| TEXT | Evoke the story in the reader’s mind | Telling to evoke |
| Clarity | ||
| Working memory limitations | ||
| Stimulus-response order | ||
| The story cycle | ||
| Scenes and summary | ||
| Point of view | ||
| Beginnings & endings | ||
| Poetic devices, Sound and rhythm | ||
| Mechanics |
Now let’s see how I’d use the framework. Let’s say I want to work on developing character. Sometimes my drag net pulls in great character ideas without much effort on my part at all. But sometimes what I drag in needs some development. And sometimes I don’t have anything in my net at all and need to generate something from scratch.
When it’s time to develop character, I’ve found that if I focus on the key things that trigger my sympathy for someone, my feeling that they deserve reward or punishment, and my interest in them, it’s much easier to develop a character that rocks, one that moves and delights and thrills me. It also helps me to think about the roles my characters play. So I’ll apply the principles one way when developing a sidekick and another when developing a villain. Finally, there are only so many words in a novel. I need to manage my stage time. If I have too many characters, I might not have enough stage time to develop any story in a satisfactory way. If I have too few, I might run into problems with structure and plot.
Let’s say I want to work on my story problem. Well, I’d focus on the things that make readers hope and fear for my character. I’d brainstorm options for the three main story problem types. I’d make sure my I knew what the goals were for my protagonist and antagonist.
Do you see how this works?
Once you get enough material developed in each of the story categories (character, setting, problem, plot, and text), the story will come alive in your mind. And then it’s just a matter of finishing the text so that it evokes the story in the reader’s mind.
Some may wonder why I included text as part of development. Don’t you develop the story first and then translate it to the text? No. A lot of development happens as you write the text. For example, it’s hard for me to get my character’s voice and attitude without putting him or her on the page.
If you go back and look at the list again, you’ll see that the principles and concepts supporting the objectives for genre, character, setting, problem, plot, and text have a lot to do with how story works. On the other hand, the principles supporting the general objective of having the story come to life in my own mind focus on how we develop stories.
In this series, I’ve been focusing on the principles of how we develop stories. But you’ll also want to continue to enlarge your understanding of how stories work. For more on the principles for character, problem, and plot, see my 27-part series I wrote for SFWA on the Key Conditions for Suspense.
Now that we’ve identified what we’re supposed to develop and the principles that support those objectives, it’s helpful to see the different types of tools we can use to help us meet our objectives.
A tool is just that—something we use to accomplish some objective. Chimps use sticks to help them fish termites out of holes. Bakers use beaters to help them mix batters. Mechanics have tools to help them turn screws and nuts. Writers have tools to help them do what they need to do.
I’ve listed the tools I’ve found useful. I know you may not know what a number of them are. That’s okay. In the series I’ll explain what each is and how to use it. For now just look over the list. And because I can’t figure out how to make my blankety-blank tables look snazzy with the WPress template and controls I have, I’ve provided a PDF of the framework here instead. Click on the link below to download it.
John Brown’s Story Development Framework v2012-05-12
Did you notice that for each set of tools I also list “Other . . .” That’s because there are many tools that authors find useful. Try them. Keep the ones you find productive and toss the rest. This isn’t an exhaustive or mandatory list.
And remember that the key thing isn’t the tool. The objective is. The tool is simply a means to help you meet the objective. And so you don’t have to use all the tools. You don’t have to use any of them. Because the goal is NOT to use a tool. The goal is to develop the story.
For example, if you already have a rocking problem, there’s no need to use a tool to get one. If you’re doing a character history and suddenly hit gold, you don’t have to finish all the prompts in your history document. You don’t have to because this is NOT about filling out forms. It’s about making the story come alive in your mind. Sometimes you need only a little development to get the ideas, sometimes you need a lot.
Bottom line: focus on the objectives. Keep developing material until you have enough in each of area that the story is bucking and kicking in your hands.
And, again, don’t worry about developing the objectives in a certain sequence because there isn’t a best sequence. With one story you might start with a little character, then a bit of setting, then some text, then more character, then problem, then plot, the back to character, then setting again, then something else, a bit here, an idea there. On another story you might start with a scrap of text or something somebody said and go to plot then character then genre and then back to each one again and again, building up line by line in some other way.
There is no golden development sequence! Just keep the objectives in mind, and keep your eyes open for ideas that you can use to meet each objective.
Having laid the framework out, I know some might be wondering where to start, especially after I told you it didn’t matter where you started. You’re wondering this because the fact is that it IS nice to have some guidance.
And because it really doesn’t matter how you meet the objectives, and because most ideas come when you’re on the move, then there’s a great benefit in simply starting with any method you have at hand. So let’s not fall prey to an attack of dithering brought on by option overload. If you don’t know where to start, try this.
First, identify a number of slots this week and next when you can work on your story. Try to get at least ten hours each week. You may find your slots in the morning, during breaks, at lunch, late at night. Just find some times that work for you.
When that first time slot comes, take stock of the ideas you have right now, the zing you’ve gathered or generated to this point, and make a rough summary. Do you have any bits of character, problem, or plot? Have you delved into your setting? Do you have an idea of the story genre? Do you have any inkling about the type of story this will be, e.g. is this going to be a story about cyber security, love, friendship, vampires, spies, World War 2, two old fisherman and the mafia?
Summarize what you have in just one or two pages. Or maybe you only have one line. That’s okay too. Write it down.
When you’ve finished step one, ask yourself what genre of story you’d like to write. Maybe you have two or three genres you’re interested in. Maybe you want to write some mix—a cowboy science fiction, an epic fantasy comedy, a romantic thriller. Think about what kind of story you would like to read. Think about the kind of characters, plots, and settings you enjoy. The kind of experience you would love to have when reading. Write two paragraphs summarizing your thoughts. 200 words or less.
Third, identify two or three other stories that are kind of like the one you think you might want to write. Write the titles of these stories down even if they’re only vaguely in the ball park. Now answer these questions about them:
1. Size
2. Characters
3. Problem & Plot
4. What else was cool about the story?
Now go the extra mile and outline the plot in two pages or less. Just do little bullet points.
Did you get any ideas for your story from this? Anything you want to copy or twist? If so, write it down.
Fourth, identify the main character, setting, problem, or plot ideas that are drawing your interest. Decide to go hunt some zing with a purpose. Pick one of the ideas you think will be a big part of the story, go to the library, and get some books on that thing. Start with books for juveniles if they have them, then work into more hefty tomes. Identify some documentaries or films on the subject. Check them out. Or get them on Netflix. Read and watch, keeping your eye out for ideas that might work for your six core story objectives.
Is there someone you can talk to who has first-hand experience with this thing? If so, call or visit them and ask them some questions.
Can you go experience it first hand? If so, do it.
Did you get any ideas for your story from this? If so, big or small, write them down.
Fifth, review the zing you’ve captured to this point. Note anything that pops out to you. Can you write your story concept down yet (the character, the setting, the goal, and the main opposition and obstacle he or she will face)? Give it a try.
If not, no biggie. Review the seven development objectives to fix them in your mind.
Sixth, flip a coin. Heads you’ll start generating character. Tails you’ll start generating story problems. Review the principles for the part of story the coin toss determined you’d work on, then begin generating as many options as possible for that part of story.
If you’re generating character ideas, list all the types of characters commonly associated with the big idea you’ve been researching. Try to get at least ten on the list. Maybe you’ll include some specific people you ran across in your research. Then list a bunch of types of characters not commonly associated. Maybe throw in a few people you know who might be fun to base a character on. Identify characters from each list you think might enjoy writing. Generate a few more. Let’s say three. Don’t be afraid to be wacky. If you have to, include Chuck Norris as the last one.
If you’re generating problem, list the threats, opportunities, and mysteries commonly associated with the topic you’ve been researching. Get at least ten. Make sure you include some big, significant ones that really speak to you. If you’re going for comedy, add in some smaller ones. Think of your favorite comedy show, e.g. Jerry Seinfeld, and ask the types of problems those characters might run into here. Now list problems that are not commonly associated with this idea. Try for at least ten. Identify problems from both lists you think might be fun. Generate three more. Don’t afraid to be a bit wacky.
Now switch. If you did characters first, do problems and vice versa.
Did you get any ideas for your story from this? If so, write them down.
Finally, think about the type of problem your character is facing. If you have a couple of problems you’re deciding between, or perhaps a story where a character has a couple of story lines (maybe an inner one and an external one), choose one to work with. You can develop the others later.
Write up the character’s goal in 50 words or less. Now list out the steps people like your character would usually take to solve the type of problem you are working with. Try to avoid having your character do dumb things. Let them be smart. If you have no idea how anyone would go about solving that type of problem, go do some research. Talk to someone who might know.
Once you’ve sketched out those general steps, generate a list of at least 12 disadvantages, obstacles, conflicts, or surprises your character could run into that would make it really hard to solve the problem and reach his or her goal. Some of the items on your list can be small; others might throw the character for a major loop. Again, if you can’t think of any obstacles or quickly run out of ideas, go do some research. Talk to someone who might know.
Now look at this from the antagonist’s point of view. What’s his goal? Write up the antagonist’s goal in 50 words or less. What are some common steps a smart and determined (maybe ruthless) person like your antagonist would take to go about removing the problem the hero is causing?
Did you get any ideas for your story from this? If so, write them down.
At this point, you should be well into the development of your story. It’s up to you how to proceed. Maybe you want to write an exploratory draft of a few chapters to get the character’s voice and start defining the setting. Maybe you’ve discovered you need to research a bit about something specific like sharks or Cessna airplanes or the tactics of Napoleonic armies. Or maybe you feel it’s time to sketch out a general outline of the plot. Or maybe you want to review the principles and concepts of one of the story parts. Or maybe it’s not that at all. Maybe you want to watch or read some stories in your genre to see how they did it. There are a lot of things you could do.
Pick something and do it. There’s great power in simply getting to work. Continue to develop the various parts of your story. And if you feel ready to start writing a draft, then start writing the draft, even if you peter out after only one scene.
Remember the objectives. Keep working on them. Sooner or later, I guarantee you, the story will open its eyes and look up at you. It will not come to you fully fleshed out. But you’ll have enough to switch your focus to drafting.
When I get to that point and my mind is juiced with some interesting characters in an interesting and compelling situation, I usually capture the essence of the story by writing some form of the Story Setup. Then I write a simple working outline, which is nothing more than a bullet point sketch of how my character runs into his problem, his response, some of the obstacles he faces, and the results of that action, which leads to trouble, which leads to more action, etc. It also includes the same for my antagonist. This is story cycle stuff. I might include a few key details I need for the scenes I’m listing out. Or not. Furthermore, I might be able to envision the whole thing at this point and write an outline that reflects that. Or I might see only the first few scenes clearly and have to be satisfied with a general sketch of what happens later. That’s not a big deal because development continues as you’re drafting. The key is that the story is alive in my mind, and I know in general what it’s about and where I’m going. It’s enough to begin. And so I begin to write chapter one (if I haven’t written it already).
Good luck!
In the next post I’m going to explain how to generate your own zing using Creative Q&A. Hopefully, I’ll get to it before another six months has passed :O
For more in this series, see How to Get and Develop Story Ideas
This week’s Writing Excuses was an interesting topic. I’ve had similar questions from folks as I give my workshop on writing fiction. Here are some additions to the excellent comments made by our fearless Three.
In my experience and those of other published writers I know, wanting to start to draft only when you’re ready to begin writing THE draft that will take you clear to the end is only going to land you into a bog of dither.
Here’s why. It’s almost impossible to know if this attempt at the hill is going to work until you make the attempt at the hill. Much of the story creation, even for those who do a lot of the creation in summary/outline form first, still takes place in the drafting. And you never know if something you create while drafting is going to throw a monkey wrench into the whole thing.
Nobody I know who does a lot of development in the outline/summary form (and I’m one of those) has ever written a satisfactory novel without having to continually modify the original outline or abandon it altogether. David Farland tells a story of getting to the ending of one novel, the ENDING, and only then seeing a new ending that was going to be so much better than the one he planned. Which meant he needed a different beginning. Which meant a rewrite. And so he started the whole freaking story over.
Writing a novel is like seeing a far off destination that you’ve never been to before and to which there are no roads. You’ve got to make a trail to that destination. So when you set out you may be able to see a path for a mile or so, you may even have tried to get an overview of the terrain, but you must reconcile yourself to the fact that you are going to run into an impassable bog, or a cliff, or killer bees–you’re going to have dead-ends and backtracks.
No matter what you do, it’s gonna happen. It’s just part of the nature of blazing trails. Even if you scout out possible routes, some of those routes are just not going to work when the wagon train finally gets there.
This isn’t to say we must all become draft-only writers. There is HUGE value to some of us in having a starting line-up or knowing the ending or having the bare bones of the plot or having done a good deal of world building. For myself, I’ve learned I never get very far down any path if I don’t have a number of strong ideas for all the parts of story–character, setting, problem, and plot. But I only learned that by setting off time and time again and each time immediately having to stop. And new writers will never learn what they need, as was said, until they just start.
So if the reality is that every author is going to have hiccups and course changes along the way, then it’s far more important and useful and efficient, not to wait for the perfect moment to draft, and draft the story only once, but to just start drafting.
Okay, for those of you who want a specific number, let me help you. A new writer recently posted a question wondering if she migh have world-builders disease. Here was my response.
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Ms. X, one way to approach your diagnosis is to determine how many books per year you want to write. Because world-builders disease is only a malady in certain circumstances.
If you don’t care about output and simply enjoy building worlds, then maybe you’re like Tolkien. He started The Book of Lost Tales in 1917 and didn’t finish THE HOBBIT until 1937 (20 years). He didn’t finish LOTR until 1949 (another 12 years). In this is your situation, then you are hale and hearty and have many years of enjoyment ahead of you.
If you DO care about output and want to write one book per year, then I’d suggest you get some drafting treatment immediately. Here’s why: you now have only 26 weeks to finish.
But wait: take out 4 weeks for vacation, sickness, relatives, and mosquito infestations. You now have 22 weeks.
Assume you get 2 good hours of writing 6 days a week for 12 hours a week. Assume further that you can get a conservative 500 words of finished product per hour, or 1,000 words in 2 hours. (Sure you may be able to write faster than that in any given session, but when you go back and fiddle with it the next day and the next, you have to accout for that.)
At this rate it will take you 17 weeks to finish a 100,000 word novel. And that’s only if you keep your story furnace hot with consistent hours each day.
But wait: that’s only a FIRST draft. You now need to let it sit a bit. Reread it. Send it out to readers. Then REVISE. You only have 5 weeks to do that!
Of course, your inputs to the equation might differ. But if your goal is a book a year, you need to get cracking. Most of your development will come as you write. It’s exciting and lovely. Don’t miss it. Get your starting line up written out in the next three days and then take the plunge.
Here’s the third episode I recorded with the Writing Excuses guys.
In the first podcast we talked about putting and not putting ourselves in our writing and making characters who don’t all sound like the author. In the second, we talked about how to not repeat yourself as an author. In this one, I shared some basics about generating emotion in readers and dealing with negative emotions writers face when they encounter rejection, compare their career with others, hit writer’s block, or hear someone didn’t like their story.
As usual, the guys had some great insights. Check it out: Emotion in Fiction.
Author Mette Harrison writes a column on writing for Orson Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show. I think you can read them without a subscription. This month’s column had some great insights. Here’s one fab example.
I also recommend that if you want to write a book that readers will not be able to put down, focus on one really good story (more on this next month). I am not saying that you can’t have sub plots or minor characters. You can. But I urge you to make sure that your page count does not obscure which characters are the main ones or what their main goal is. If you have lots of different characters who are in different parts of your world, that is fine. But make sure that they are all working at different ends of the same thread, that they all end up being part of the same story. If you cannot figure out which character is the one you want your readers to care the most about, to root for most desperately, you may have too many characters.
Good advice. There’s more.
